ICT2014 Abstracts

Developing low cost and efficient thermoelectronic materials is a field of growing academic and industry areas. The nanocrystal solids can be used a building block for solution-based thermoelectronic device. In fact, development of thermoelectric materials on quantum confined nanocrystals deserves special attention since their electronic structure with delta-function-like peaks in the density of electronic states is predicted to be the best theoretically possible for a thermoelectric material.  

Thermoelectric devices using electronically coupled nanoparticle arrays provided an ideal system for lowering thermal conductivity through the interfacial phonon scattering.  At the same time, a broad range of inorganic capping ligands like molecular metal chalcogenide complex (MCCs) can be used to improve the electrical conductivity in nanocrystal assembly.  The unique advantage of MCCs can provide stable all inorganic NCs with excellent TE properties with highly conductivity and low thermal conductivity. Talapin group reported PbTe and Bi₂Se₃ nanocrystals with Sb₂Te₇^4- MCCs as the soluble building blocks for nanostructured TE materials. Properly designed MCC bridges between nanocrystals provided high electron mobility and very low thermal conductivity induced by the interfacial phonon scattering. Thermoelectric properties of our nanocomposite materials reveled ZT=0.7 and 0.6 at 300K and 523, respectively.   

In this presentation, we will report easy and convenient incorporation of selective dopants and phonon scattering centers into thermoelectric matrix using multicomponent nanocrystals and inorganic surface molecular species. Also, we will report synthesis and characterization of hybrid MoS₂ and nanoparticle nanocomposities for novel thermoelectronic materials.